Tipsheet

Chicago Teachers' Union Is All About Activism, Not Education

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  March 12, 2026 8:30 AM

Just the other day, we told you that the Chicago Teachers' Union (CTU) can't find time to teach Chicago Public School (CPS) students to read, but it can find time to rub elbows with Marxists, Antifa, and others in a pro-Iran protest. It's painfully clear that CTU has no intention of teaching children how to read or do math, but to be Left-wing activists instead. This time, CTU is urging its members to not show up to work on May 1.

Here's what that statement said (emphasis added):

At the Chicago Teachers Union’s House of Delegates, the union’s highest elected governing body voted to echo the national call for “no school, no work, no shopping” on May 1st.

Across the country, labor unions and community groups are drawing inspiration from successful boycotts of companies like Target who have turned their back on diversity and lent their stores to ICE agents, the successful day of truth and freedom in Minneapolis that removed the head of Border Patrol from occupying their city, Chicago’s own history of massive immigrants rights marches in 2006, and even further back, the Civil Rights movement that confronted Jim Crow, the organizing of A Philip Randolph and the Pullman Porters, and the general strike of enslaved Africans who broke the back of the Confederacy and ended the Civil War.

The union is calling on its own history of its one-day strike in 2016 where educators walked out of school for the day to protest massive budget cuts and threats to cut 7% of teacher salaries and ultimately helped win the evidence-based formula the following year that set a measure and objective to adequately fund schools, a requirement set to be met next year that legislators have introduced new legislation this session in order to ensure the state complies with the deadline.

The educators say they are fighting to make a billionaire governor deliver for their students, billionaire corporate donors to stop corrupting democracy, and a billionaire president to end his authoritarian abuse of power.

“Teaching our students what civic action looks like requires more than textbooks when the President sends federal agents to occupy our cities and the Governor chooses to continue giving tax breaks to billionaires instead of giving our students the school day they deserve,” explained CTU Vice President Jackson Potter. “If we still want to have democracy in the midterms this November, public schools that provide our students with quality education, and unions to defend workers’ rights, then it is up to every Chicagoan to stand up for what we believe in and show the authoritarian billionaire in Washington that when he breaks every rule, we will not go along with business as usual.”

Target ended up leaving Minneapolis, which means those employees are out of work and the community without a store. That's a "win," according to the CTU. Notice how they protest for everything and anything but improving education for their students? 

The stats at CPS are damning, too: 53 schools have zero students proficient at math. The 20 least enrolled schools average 14.6 percent capacity, a 3:1 student-teacher ratio, over $33k spent per student, and 11 percent reading proficiency. 

Abolish public teachers' unions.

They said returning to the classroom was racist and sexist.

Way to look out for working families, CTU.

The absolute state of CPS.

That's what communists do.

As we said, abolish unions that do this. They're not interested in education.